Professor P. G. O’Neill

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Outstanding language teacher, academic and author who helped to make SOAS the pre-eminent school of Japanese in Britain

Patrick O’Neill was appointed Professor of Japanese at the School of Oriental
and African Studies in the University of London in 1968, remaining in the
post until retirement in 1986, by which time he had helped to make SOAS the
pre-eminent school of Japanese in Britain. His main research interests lay
in the Japanese No drama and the Japanese written language, but he was also
an inspiring teacher. He was one of the outstanding Japanese scholars
produced by the intensive wartime language courses that were started to meet
the needs of the Armed Forces in the Pacific War.